Hollywood Park’s new mayor and City Council will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. May 23 to interview four residents who applied for the vacant Place 1 council seat.

Following an hourlong executive session May 17, the council unanimously voted to call the special meeting.

That is when council members can interview all four applicants to appoint a new Place 1 representative. City officials said residents Chester Drash, Del Gallivan, Laura Heard and Dale Randol applied for Place 1, where a vacancy was created when Council Member Sean Moore became mayor.

Moore was the lone applicant for the mayor’s office in the May 7 election. Moore and newly elected council members Todd Kounse and Wendy Gonzalez all took the oath of office May 17.

Place 5 Council Member Glenna Pearce said the upcoming special meeting will allow the council to individually talk with each Place 1 applicant. The Place 1 appointee will fill Moore’s unexpired term, which ends in May 2023.

“We have four fantastic candidates, all of whom I would feel comfortable with serving,” Pearce said.

After being sworn into office, Moore thanked outgoing Mayor Oscar Villarreal and two other outgoing council members Debbie Trueman and Delaine Hall for their service to the city. Villarreal, Trueman and Hall all declined re-election bids ahead of the May 7 election.

Moore said the community owes much to Villarreal for the 13-plus months he spent as mayor.

“My intention is to keep running what [Villarreal] got started,” Moore said.

Aside from filling the Place 1 council vacancy and addressing other business, the town of Hollywood Park will soon begin preparing a fiscal year 2022-23 budget.

The city tentatively scheduled council budget workshops Aug. 8, 9 and 15, with a final workshop and public hearing on the budget happening Aug. 22.